Thread: War

okay .maybe a bit heavy for a Monday morning....

If all the conflicts in the world were to stop tommorrow...would not the economies of the western world tank (sorry ....weak pun)

Think about WW2..pulled the US out of economic depression?

At whose expense?

Originally Posted by crepitas

okay .maybe a bit heavy for a Monday morning....

If all the conflicts in the world were to stop tommorrow...would not the economies of the western world tank (sorry ....weak pun)

Think about WW2..pulled the US out of economic depression?

It wasn't the war by itself, but the enormous government spending it required to run. Produced safe jobs for the workers, and orders and planning reliability for the private sector.

Originally Posted by crepitas

.would not the economies of the western world tank

look East ...............

World military spending falls, but China, Russia’s spending rises, says SIPRI
15 Apr. 2013

The fall—the first since 1998—was driven by major spending cuts in the USA and Western and Central Europe, as well as in Australia, Canada and Japan. The reductions were, however, substantially offset by increased spending in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America. China, the second largest spender in 2012, increased its expenditure by 7.8 per cent ($11.5 billion). Russia, the third largest spender, increased its expenditure by 16 per cent ($12.3 billion).

Despite the drop, the global total was still higher in real terms than the peak near the end of the cold war.

‘We are seeing what may be the beginning of a shift in the balance of world military spending from the rich Western countries to emerging regions, as austerity policies and the drawdown in Afghanistan reduce spending in the former, while economic growth funds continuing increases elsewhere,’ said Dr Sam Perlo-Freeman, Director of SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. ‘However, the USA and its allies are still responsible for the great majority of world military spending. The NATO members together spent a trillion dollars.

15 Apr. 2013: World military spending falls, but China, Russia

Imagine if the US took the ~$1 trillion it spends on the military every year and invested it into infrastructure, education, R&D, healthcare, paying off the national debt, etc. The US economy would be BOOMING.

Good God, what is it good for?

Absolutely NOTHING .

Say it again.

Originally Posted by Lantern

Say it again.

We can say such things until we're blue in the face....

No one is listening.

War is what we do well.

War makes certain people rich. If they are powerful, it's inevitable.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

War makes certain people rich. If they are powerful, it's inevitable.

I guess a mass extermination of those elite is in order...



".....suppose they gave a war and nobody showed up?"

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

War makes certain people rich. If they are powerful, it's inevitable.

I guess a mass extermination of those elite is in order...



".....suppose they gave a war and nobody showed up?"

"A mass extermination of those elite is in order" ,Yeah Mao , Stalin and Pol Pot went down that road and look were it got them ,or should I say look were it got upwards of 120 million of their own people , how little these left wingers learn from the past

Strange, I never put any political slant on it. Paranoia, perhaps?

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Originally Posted by Lantern

Say it again.

We can say such things until we're blue in the face....

No one is listening.

War is what we do well.

That must be the remix - not quite such a ring to it though.

Originally Posted by piwanoi

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

War makes certain people rich. If they are powerful, it's inevitable.

I guess a mass extermination of those elite is in order...



".....suppose they gave a war and nobody showed up?"

"A mass extermination of those elite is in order" ,Yeah Mao , Stalin and Pol Pot went down that road and look were it got them ,or should I say look were it got upwards of 120 million of their own people , how little these left wingers learn from the past

You really miss a lot....don't ya?
Saturated by your narrow and blind political identity [like many], you miss the greater [and real] picture.

That's the way it is with piwanoi and Boon Me. Talking with them is like a cone, no matter where you start, weather, food, Formula 1, you arrive at Stalin and Mao.

I think they should do some reading....

^

has been suggested

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Strange, I never put any political slant on it. Paranoia, perhaps?

I cannot really equate paranoia with the irrefutable truth that the mass extermination of the elite in society did actually happen under these three

Originally Posted by Rainfall

That's the way it is with piwanoi and Boon Me. Talking with them is like a cone, no matter where you start, weather, food, Formula 1, you arrive at Stalin and Mao.

Like a cone eh, I was thinking the same of you in your views on racism

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

I think they should do some reading....

The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.

its an important business sector...

the world would go down within days, without arms race...

I suppose the occasional mass killing does stave off the inevitable slide into the irreversible extinction of mankind.

Wow, you're right, this thread is deep.

Originally Posted by crepitas

If all the conflicts in the world were to stop tommorrow...would not the economies of the western world tank

Originally Posted by alitongkat

its an important business sector...

the world would go down within days, without arms race...

Common fallacies and totally untrue, quote below illustrates why.

From the old classic, Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt. A book everyone should read.

Let us begin with the simplest illustration possible: let us, emulating Bastiat, choose a broken pane of glass.


A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sum. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.


Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier. The glazier will be no more unhappy to learn of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace a window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as a part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer.


The glazier’s gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new “employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.

Economics in One Lesson

i didnt say "war", said "arms race"...

your guy there is talking about value chain, and it depends on the value chain, what is more lucrative for society... depends on what the tailor would do with the money etcc... maybe he would be a new window?

most weapons (i would think) are never used, they end up in storages or for soldiers to train...
they have to be maintained and replaced regularly with newer models etc etc...
so, its a quite good thing... economically...